The Fubar Fiasco
Dec 14, 2009 News
The Fubar show on Friday December 11th was meant to be a good show to promote our Birthday show, pick up a few new fans and possibly make a little money. None of which happened but we were successful in getting in the middle of a bar fight, loosing money, and successfully playing to nearly no one in a packed bar.
Let me make this clear before I begin, this is in no way supposedto reflect badly on the Fubar. We really enjoy the club and hope to play there again, but there must have been a full moon that night because if it could go wrong, it did.
Another comment: The show was divided into 2 parts, the early show and late show. We were scheduled to be the opening act on the late show, starting at 10:30 pm.
The evening started promisingly enough. We showed up at Fubar around 8:30 and had trouble finding a parking spot, always a good sign. When we finally did, and made it inside, it was packed. You could hardly walk. The music was loud and the crowd loved it. So we sat back, relaxed, and had a few beers before our load in time of 10pm.
This was also the last time we will ever cover ticket sales for anyone, including close personal friends. We were trying to save our buddies a little money by buying their tickets a head of time so they didn’t have to pay the door price which was $2 more. So we settled up with the bartender and waited for our friends to arrive to pay us back. As the evening progressed, phone calls and text messages came in informing us they people weren’t showing. And by the end we were out a grand total of $136! Never again. Part of me feels like I should require them to pay us back, but I seriously doubt that will ever happen.
We continued to drink and try to have a good time, despite the money loss, as we watched 10pm come and go. By 11 we started to wonder if we were even going to be playing this show. So we took action and started to load in our gear. It had been sitting in cold cars for nearly 3 hours already and I know that’s not good on my guitar strings, not to mention the drums. Another main reason to get our gear was to get it set up before last band of the early show was finished, so we could keep the show going, and hopefully keep the people.
We walked a few blocks and grabbed some drum stuff and made it back to the club, blue lipped and cold, when the door guy turned us away. He said it was too early to load in and there wouldn’t be enough room for us. So we shivered our way back to the car to reload it.
A good friend of ours, Moe, from Scene of Irony who came to the show to support us, didn’t like the idea that we couldn’t load in. He is good friends with the owner of Fubar and told us to load in and he would take care of the door guy. So out we go again in the cold to lug our stuff back in.
We got the majority of the drums in when we noticed that Moe and the door guy were not getting along anymore. As always, I have to defend my friend, but I did see the door guys point of view, it was his job to watch the door and Moe doesn’t work there, so the door guy has the right to tell bands whether they have the right to bring their stuff in or not. From Moe’s point of view, it was nonsense that we couldn’t bring in our stuff when there was clearly enough room to put it. Obviously, the door guy was letting the “power” get to his head. One thing lead to the next and the two decided to settle it the old fashioned way. Bottles were broken, punches were thrown and girls got involved, but no one was really hurt, luckily for the door guy, Moe is twice his size.
The early show ended around midnight and we were ready to load our stuff on the stage when we heard, “Shows over folks, go home”. All we could do was sit back and watch as 200+ people walked right out the door.
We played our set to the few people who were left. It would have been a good show if people were there. We had a few friends there to support us and a couple surprise appearances, which made it a little less lonely.
Then band after us, a two piece White Stripes style band, had even less. No matter hard you try, it difficult to get your friends to stick around at 1am when they were planning on seeing you before 11pm.
All in all it was a late night, and we are looking forward to the birthday show at the Way Out Club on Friday December 18th. Hopefully that show will run little smoother.
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Tags: Fubar, Scene of Irony
Jupiter Studios Battle Of The Bands Review
Jul 8, 2009 News
Let me start this by saying, “Thank You” to all who came out to support us at Fubar for the Jupiter Studios Battle of the Bands. Alas, we didn’t win, but IMHO we rocked. I am not one to give my band or myself too much credit, I always think we can do better, but I believe that this show was amazing!
I’m not going to give you a play by play of the evening, for that you can read A Night At Fubar on JohnNemec.com, but I will give you the short of the show.
Of the six bands scheduled to play the show, only 3 arrived: Achalachia, The Phranklyn Project, and Almost Modest. We had a half hour set scheduled, July 1 Set List, but with the missing bands we had to fill in 45 minutes. Also, the show was scheduled to begin at 8 but was pushed back to 8:30.
I’ll never understand why a band would drop out of a show, ever. But of all the shows to drop out of, why this one? Just for playing this show every band receives 10 free hours of studio time from Jupiter Studios. If that wasn’t enough, what about the fact that the whole reason people are in bands is to play their music, which they’ve worked hard to create, on stage in front of people other than your mother.
That being said, the set we ended up playing was:
- Vomit
- Self Esteem
- Hey Refrain
- Norman
- Broken
- Sappy
- Personal Canary
We guessed our time wrong and didn’t get to play Petunia Pussylittle, which was the first time we didn’t play the song at a show since it was made. But it turned out well, and it was refreshing not to play it.
The other bands were good, but I truly believe that we were better. “Then why didn’t you win?” you ask, well, bottom line is, we didn’t sell as many tickets. Both of the other bands brought far more people than us, and the judging was based on how loud the crowd gets after the set. After our set the crowd was VERY loud, and I thought we might have a chance of winning, but towards the end of the show about 30 fourteen year old kids walked through the door. The boys balls hadn’t dropped and the girls hadn’t found cigarettes yet so the decibel range had to be off the chart. At least that’s what I tell myself to make me feel better.
Win or lose, we still have our 10 free hours of studio time, so that gives us a grand total of 20 hours at Jupiter Studios to record some songs. We are still thinking of recording Petunia Pussylittle and Personal Canary. If you have any other suggestions, please let us know.
Now we are preparing for the 105.7 The Point and Pop’s Battle for Pointfest show. We will need everyone support if we are going to win this one. The winner gets to play the side stage at Pointfest. So bring your friends, neighbors, and your mom. Also, buy your tickets from us, it makes us look better, and you can get your tickets by sending us an email on our contact page.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Tags: Battle of the Bands, Fubar, Jupiter Studio, recording, Show Review
Dorothy to cover Hey Refrain
Jun 25, 2009 News
We were asked by the Local Rock Band Dorothy on our MySpace page if they could cover our song Hey Refrain. Hell Yeah! As far as we know, no one has ever covered an Achalachia song.
It’s still not confirmed when the song will be covered, but most likely will be at Dorothy’s Fubar Show on August 5th.
With this news, we thought there wouldn’t be a better time to post what we have about Hey Refrain.
Listen to Hey Refrain
Hey Refrain Video
Popularity: 4% [?]
Tags: Dorothy, Fubar, Hey Refrain, Video
Tour of Jupiter Studios
May 27, 2009 News
Our May 26th stop on the Great Studio Hunt was Jupiter Studios. And to say the least, it was short and sweet.
We met with Rob, and audio engineer that normally works the graveyard shift, and normally does not give the tours, but had to due to scheduling conflicts.
He started by showing us Live Room A, a 25×22 foot room with 20-foot ceilings, along with the guitar room and isolation booths. He really didn’t say much about the rooms (again, he’s not the normal tour guide) but it sounded like most studio rooms, that eerie quiet feeling with no echo and could easily fit a 3-piece rock band.
From there we took a look at the Control Room, where a recording was taking place with Doug the Studio A Engineer. We got to listen to a bit of what was being worked on, which sounded really good, while the vocalist was taking a breather.
We didn’t want to take up too much of their time so we quickly left and to take a look at Studio B. This is a much smaller studio, mainly used for solo acts and rap, and there was no way a 3-piece would fit in there. Again, someone was doing some vocals so we left after a few minutes.
Finally, we ended up in an office (more or less) and were given a chance to ask some questions, since we had to be quite because of the recording that was going on. We talked about the normal things, what we are trying to do, money and time. We let him know we are a 3-piece rock band looking to record one song in 10 hours. Nick, the bass player, also noticed a card for a battle of the bands, where every band gets 10 free hours just by playing the show, and that sealed the deal for us. Twenty hours of studio time for only $500, that’s the best price we’ve found so far.
So now it seems that the Great Studio Hunt has ended, for now, and we can get back to working on our music and playing shows. We have booked the battle of the bands show for July 1st at Fubar, tickets are only $8, more we’ll keep you posted with more info as we get it.
Popularity: -0% [?]
Tags: Battle of the Bands, Fubar, Jupiter Studio, recording, studio